"...irritation is what allows oysters to create pearls." says Scott Adams. He's not talking about innovation (or strategy for that matter), but about humans, yet in the end, isn't it all the same anyway? Surely, irritation with the status quo is one of the most influential emotions that drive creativity and innovation.

Or maybe you perfer the old adage that "necessity is the mother of invention". But that doesn't explain things like YouTube, you might think, unless people all over the world actually "need" a free place to post home movies of their friends dressed up as Presidents, racing across the field during a Nationals baseball game.

On the other hand, irritation actually IS what drove the initial development of YouTube:

'All Chad Hurley and Steve Chen wanted to do was share some videos from a dinner party with a half-dozen friends in San Francisco. It was January, 2005, and they couldn't figure out a good solution. Sending the clips around by e-mail was a bust: The e-mails kept getting rejected because they were so big. Posting the videos online was a headache, too. So last February the two buddies got to work in Hurley's garage, determined to design something simpler. '

What is the Value of Irritation? In this case, $1.65 Billion.

Get innovative by embracing your inner irritated child.

5:03:16 PM    
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